


Brittle

by fresne



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: Cat2, Gen, Literature, Shakespeare, Twenties, Yuletide 2013, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brittle. That was the word she was looking for, brittle. Perhaps it was because she was hollowed out. She'd cared so much and for so long that she simply could not stand to do it another moment longer. Full of acid and longing to spill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brittle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redletters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redletters/gifts).



> The following may be considered as inspiration for my work and inspiration for my dialogue, possibly even quotes because apt quotes are cool:  
> Don John quotes Dante's Paradisio, Canto XVII

Brittle.

Brittle. That was the word she was looking for, brittle. Perhaps it was because she was hollowed out. She'd cared so much and for so long that she simply could not stand to do it another moment longer.

She balanced her champagne glass on the banister and slouched as well as her prettiest frock would allow, which was actually quite a lot, because she did believe in the freedom of motion.

She could get ossified. She could fill up and give the glassy eyed stare like Genevieve off in the corner blinking at that plaster lamp of a nude woman holding a sun.

Beatrice snorted and slowly swirled her glass in the liquid of its sweat dripping on the marble banister.

A glass pinged down next to hers. "I think I've been to this party before?" Don Juan had slouched up beside her like the beast in that Yeats poem. She smirked into her glass, because the West Egg confetti jazz madness below was not Bethlehem. It wasn't even Antioch. Not with that bathtub whiskey fountain splashing away.

"Ah, you've been to this party too then?" Don Juan turned towards her slightly and was spreading the charm on like oil on butter. Which since the purpose of the party was to celebrate his legit brother's quashing his bastardly attempt to take over Aragonia Oil that was just too funny.

"I do seem to recall attending this very same celebration the last time you were crushed like an onion. Weren't you crying?" She sipped her glass as if she were considering the sad wailing of one Don Juan.

He waved that off with his non-glass bearing hand in the most languid way possible. Any more uncaring and he'd ooze into a puddle on the floor and melt away. That uncaring hand was holding a gasper not at all going to Hades yet. She lit it and set fire to her own, because misery loved company, and he surely was the most miserable man there.

A good enough theory until she caught sight of Judge Hendricks trying to bob for olives in this young thing's diamond beaded cleavage. She wasn't sure if she was to pity Judge Hendricks or the young thing. "Nice necklace. Although, I suppose he's mostly interested in wearing her ring." She said the words almost not believing that she'd just said that. Because she wasn't hollow at all. She was full of acid all splashing about and waiting to spill.

Don Juan sniggered and plumed a gust of smoke out over the room. "Ghastly to think about. Although, I hear he doesn't have the petrol for more than a drive by."

"Nice work if you can get it." Then she actually pulled up the mentilalization and blanched.

Don Juan waved a circle of smoke at her. "Quick. Better have a drink to wash it away."

Her lips twisted. "There isn't enough whiskey in that fountain to wash that away." Her breath caught, because there was Belle Bester, star of stage and cinema, slipping out of a carved door on the far side closely followed by Browney McCoy. "I thought they were divorced."

"Oh, they are. This week. Next week, who knows. That's an on again, off again. Mostly on again when Browney's looking to go skiing." Here Don Juan tapped the side of his nose.

Beatrice's eyes did not widen, because she hadn't heard a word that Belle was messing around with anything like that. Words slipped out without any forethought. "She does have nice slopes." They sniggered at each other and clinked their glassed together. They made a nice sound.

She scanned the crowd below to see if she could find anyone that she knew. She spotted poor Claudio being clung to by that leach, Benedict. She waved her hand in their direction. "Pity about that. Poor Claudio will be lucky to have an ounce of blood left before Sir Leach is done with him."

"Oh, really," said Don Juan in a drawling manner that read something a bit more cake eater than Beatrice had intended, but after a moment decided that it could after all be true and if anyone deserved that sort of rumour it was the goodly Benedict.

She turned her back to the crowd and propped her elbows on the balustrade. She was not in any way hiding. "God, could this party be any more Gatsby. She was having trouble believing the words that were spilling out of her mouth. She liked Prince Pedro. She loved her uncle, who hadn't had to take her in after her mother drowned herself in laudanum and her father in Ypres mud.

Don Juan's lips curled. "You will prove how bitter the taste of another man’s bread is, and how hard it is to descend, and climb, another man’s stair." He waved at the curling stairs at Beatrice's back. "And what will bow your shoulders down will be the vicious and worthless company with whom you will fall into this abyss," he fairly spat the words, "since they will all be ungrateful, fierce and disrespectful to you:" he punctuated each word with a wave of his cigarette, "but not long after, their cheeks, not yours will blush for it. Their fate will demonstrate their brutishness, so that it will be to your credit to have formed a party of one." He tipped his glass over the balcony. She turned to watch it tumble and shatter at the feet of the herd below. They moved by instinct away from the glass. "Ooopsie. So, sorry."

She slowly clapped, because what else could such a performance call for. "I would not have pegged you for Paradisio. Inferno seemed more your style."

Don Juan traced a shape in the air. "Inferno is about damned souls trapped in eternal torment of their own making. Paradisio is full of souls who have triumphed over their brutish oppressors." He glinted a smile at her. "I leave it to you to consider which I would prefer."

Just then the Leach called out her name. She glanced over her glass hand to see Benedict hissing like a kettle from the landing below. She sighed and gave a slight bow to Don Juan. "Apologies, I should go see what it wants."

Don Juan waved her off and slouched off in opposite direction.

"What a strange man," she told herself and went down to find out just what Benedict wished to plague her with.

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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